Taliban offer to swap American hostage for Guantanamo Bay inmates

Taliban offer to swap American hostage for Guantanamo Bay inmates

    Thursday, June 20, 2013   No comments

The Taliban have laid out one of their key demands, saying they would free a captured American soldier in exchange for five prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay.

The offer – which proved one of the sticking points during earlier talks which were shelved last year – follows the opening of a Taliban political office in the Qatari capital Doha and continuing uncertainty about whether President Hamid Karzai would give his blessing to negotiations.

American diplomats have been desperately trying to placate the furious Afghan leader, incensed that the Taliban were allowed to raise their flag in Qatar.

Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, from Idaho, disappeared from his base in south-eastern Afghanistan in June 2009.

In a telephone interview with The Associated Press news agency from his Doha office, Shaheen Suhail, Taliban spokesman, said on Thursday that Bergdahl “is, as far as I know, in good condition.”
He added that the prisoner exchange was the first item on the Taliban’s agenda and could be used to build trust with the US.


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Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç threatened resign both from his post as deputy prime minister and from the Justice and Development Party (AK Party)

Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç threatened resign both from his post as deputy prime minister and from the Justice and Development Party (AK Party)

    Thursday, June 20, 2013   No comments

President Abdullah Gül intervened to persuade Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç not to resign from his post following a dispute between Arınç and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during last week's Cabinet meeting, the Taraf daily reported on Thursday.
The dispute, according to the daily, arose when Erdoğan told Arınç that he found Arınç's remarks on the Gezi Park demonstrations wrong. Following this, Arınç reportedly left the Cabinet meeting, saying that he would resign both from his post as deputy prime minister and from the Justice and Development Party (AK Party).

When Arınç could not be convinced to return by other ministers, Gül reportedly stepped in to convince Arınç not to resign.

Unlike Erdoğan, Arınç, who became acting prime minister when Erdoğan went on a five-day visit abroad earlier this month, adopted a more reconciliatory tone regarding the Gezi Park demonstrators who took to the streets in protest of government plans to demolish Gezi Park in central İstanbul's Taksim Square.

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Duran Adam (Standing Man), non-violent protest adapts and innovates in Turkey

Duran Adam (Standing Man), non-violent protest adapts and innovates in Turkey

    Wednesday, June 19, 2013   No comments

One man stood silently for more than six hours Monday night in Istanbul's Taksim Square, defying police who broke up anti-government protests weekend with tear gas and water cannon and drawing Hundreds of others to his act of civil protest.  Soon, hundreds of demonstrators stood still for hours in squares on main streets in several cities, mimicking a lone protester who started the trend on Istanbul’s Taksim Square and has been dubbed the “standing man.”



Hasan Kilic of the Istanbul Bar Association said as many as 68 people who have taken part in the widespread protests were in custody for alleged links to “terror” groups, while 33 people were being questioned by authorities and faced possible organized crime charges.

Erdem Gunduz, the protester who started the act, said he wanted to take a stand against police stopping demonstrations near the square, Dogan news agency reported. He stood silently, facing the Ataturk Cultural Centre which was draped in Turkish flags and a portrait of Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, from 6 pm (1500 GMT) Monday. By 2 am (2300 GMT), when the police moved in, about 300 people had joined him. Ten people, who refused to be moved on by police, were detained. On Monday night, police dispersed hundreds of standing protesters at Taksim Square.

More than 3,000 people have been detained since the anti-government demonstrations began, said the Human Rights Association.  Turkey’s widespread anti-government protests erupted across Turkey on May 31, when riot police brutally cracked down on peaceful environmental activists who opposed plans to remove trees and develop Gezi Park, which lies next to Istanbul’s famed Taksim Square.

Britain’s Supreme Court has lifted sanctions against Iran’s Mellat Bank describing them "irrational" and "disproportionate".

Britain’s Supreme Court has lifted sanctions against Iran’s Mellat Bank describing them "irrational" and "disproportionate".

    Wednesday, June 19, 2013   No comments

The UK's highest court ruled that the government was wrong to have imposed sanctions on an Iranian bank in 2009 over alleged links to Iran's nuclear programme.
The Supreme Court decision on Wednesday mirrored a January ruling by the European Union's General Court, which overturned sanctions imposed in 2010, and could result in the bank suing Britain for damages.
In a majority judgment, Supreme Court Judge Jonathan Sumption said that the British government had been "arbitrary", "irrational" and "disproportionate" to single out Bank Mellat, Iran's largest private bank, for sanctions.
Bank Mellat has long denied allegations against its activities and argued that it had not been consulted before sanctions were imposed.

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Palestinian refugees suffer as Syria crisis drags on

Palestinian refugees suffer as Syria crisis drags on

    Wednesday, June 19, 2013   No comments

The issue of Palestinian refugees has been a constant issue in politics of the Middle-East for 65 years. It’s a core issue of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process. Earlier, we spoke to Richard Wright, the Director of the UN Relief and Works Agency Representative Office in New York. He told us the Palestinian refugees’ situation in Syria is getting worse due to the continuing crisis in the country.

The regime digs in: President Bashar Assad and his forces have won a new lease of life

The regime digs in: President Bashar Assad and his forces have won a new lease of life

    Wednesday, June 19, 2013   No comments

“YA GHALI,” says a driver greeting the soldier manning a checkpoint of concrete blocks painted with the Syrian flag and plastered with pictures of Bashar Assad in regime-controlled central Damascus. This salutation was never in use in the capital before the war but is now standard at checkpoints. “Ghali”, or precious, is used in the coastal homeland of the Alawites, the sect from which Mr Assad hails. It is a sign both that the president is in control here and that, for all its talk of a state for all of Syria’s communities, his regime has been largely reduced to a sectarian militia, though the most powerful in the country.

This may be a harbinger of the future. The balance of power between the regime and the rebels has ebbed and flowed during the 27-month conflict, but the government’s recapture of the town of Qusayr from the rebels on June 5th has reinforced a feeling that Mr Assad has recently won the advantage. Rebels still control swathes of the north and east of the country and continue to clash with the regime in the countryside around the main population hubs of the west: Damascus, Homs and Hama. But nearly all the city centres are tightly in Mr Assad’s grip. In his determination to assert control, he has shown willing, if need be, to reduce rebellious towns to rubble.


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Hamas leaders meet with Erdoğan in Ankara

Hamas leaders meet with Erdoğan in Ankara

    Wednesday, June 19, 2013   No comments

Khaled Mashaal, the Hamas political bureau chief, and Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister of the Hamas government in Gaza, discussed the current issues related to Palestine, including the Middle East peace process, with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara.
Erdoğan and the Hamas leaders met late on Tuesday. Sources from the Prime Ministry and the Foreign Ministry, speaking to Today's Zaman before the meeting, said that the agenda of the meeting would be the Middle East peace process and internal issues related to Palestine.

Meanwhile, sources from the Palestinian Embassy in Ankara told Today's Zaman that they were not informed by either Ankara or Hamas about the visit beforehand.

The visit by the Hamas leaders came amid Erdoğan's long-discussed plans to visit Gaza. The sources said that Erdoğan's planned visit would also be among the issues discussed at the meeting, also stating that the Hamas leaders' visit was upon their own request.

Erdoğan's announcement of his long-speculated visit this year came right after a US-brokered normalization process between Turkey and Israel in March. His visit was first declared to take place in April but was later postponed following Erdoğan's trip to Washington, D.C., in mid-May. The rescheduling was said to be at the US's request over concerns that the visit to Gaza could backtrack the rather positive process of normalization between Turkey and Israel.

However, a new date for the visit has not yet been specified, even though there is no official declaration of a cancellation of the visit.


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Where the anti-Assad coalition went wrong

Where the anti-Assad coalition went wrong

    Wednesday, June 19, 2013   No comments

We don’t know what will come out of Geneva II, the US and Russian backed conference for a political solution to the Syrian crisis. But it is forcing rhetorical and diplomatic conversions upon those taking the road to Damascus.

In mid-May the Arab League made a surprising declaration. Two months after handing Syria’s seat at Doha to the opposition, League Chief Nabil el-‘Arabi explained that Syria’s seat was in fact vacant, that the opposition was in Doha at the invitation of Qatar, and that having failed to form a government, it was barred from attending League meetings.

Then Turkey. Erdogan’s fiery anti-Assad rhetoric, even accusing the Syrian regime of the Reyhanli attacks, gave way to reports rebels were arrested with Sarin gas in Turkey. In a country ranked low on press freedom, the absence of neither government confirmation nor refutation speaks volumes. Before the sarin story broke, the usually tight-lipped FM Davutoglu treated journalists to a session of bizarre intimate confessions on how he formed his judgement on Syria and Assad, as if he were coming to terms with the past, before the next leap of faith.

In Arabia, there was no soul searching. Patrons of the now discredited Syrian National Coalition turned. Qatar, smarting from its failure to engineer and broadcast Assad’s fall over its very own private TV channel, ceded its place to Saudi Arabia. The change of guard was reflected in the changing composition of the SNC, not easy as the SNC agrees only on one thing: wrestling power from Assad, and nothing else.


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Special Report: Syria's Islamists seize control as moderates dither

Special Report: Syria's Islamists seize control as moderates dither

    Wednesday, June 19, 2013   No comments

As the Syrian civil war got under way, a former electrician who calls himself Sheikh Omar built up a brigade of rebel fighters. In two years of struggle against President Bashar al-Assad, they came to number 2,000 men, he said, here in the northern city of Aleppo. Then, virtually overnight, they collapsed.

Omar's group, Ghurabaa al-Sham, wasn't defeated by the government. It was dismantled by a rival band of revolutionaries - hardline Islamists.

The Islamists moved against them at the beginning of May. After three days of sporadic clashes Omar's more moderate fighters, accused by the Islamists of looting, caved in and dispersed, according to local residents. Omar said the end came swiftly.

The Islamists confiscated the brigade's weapons, ammunition and cars, Omar said. "They considered this war loot. Maybe they think we are competitors," he said. "We have no idea about their goals. What we have built in two years disappeared in a single day."

The group was effectively marginalized in the struggle to overthrow Syria's President Bashar al-Assad. Around 100 fighters are all that remain of his force, Omar said.

It's a pattern repeated elsewhere in the country. During a 10-day journey through rebel-held territory in Syria, Reuters journalists found that radical Islamist units are sidelining more moderate groups that do not share the Islamists' goal of establishing a supreme religious leadership in the country.

The moderates, often underfunded, fragmented and chaotic, appear no match for Islamist units, which include fighters from organizations designated "terrorist" by the United States.

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Russia’s sole support for Syria casts a pall over G-8

Russia’s sole support for Syria casts a pall over G-8

    Tuesday, June 18, 2013   No comments

From the moment the Group of Eight summit began, the dividing lines on how to intervene in the Syrian civil war became clear: The U.S. and its European allies on one side, Russia on the other.
Tensions with Russia have gotten the meeting off to a rocky start. Deep disagreements on the conflict have all but guaranteed that the G-8 will not produce a unanimous decision at the resort in Northern Ireland on how, or even whether, to assist rebel forces in their fight against Syrian President Bashar Assad.

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